Hamster comparison

Below you find a short summary of significant differences between available Hamster versions:

Hamster Classic (H-Cl)

Homepage: http://hamster.arcornews.de/tgl/

Hamster Classic (H-Cl) is the most widespread version with a large user base, so you have a good chance when looking for urgent help or additional tools and scripts.

Hamster Playground (H-Pg)

Homepage: http://www.elbiah.de/hamster/pg/

Hamster Playground (H-Pg) has a much smaller user base compared to H-Cl, so it might take longer to get support and the number of available tools and scripts is limited.

Hamster-Fr (H-Fr)

Homepage: http://hamster-fr.sourceforge.net/

Hamster-Fr (H-Fr) is widely used by french speaking users. It is based on H-Cl, so if not mentioned otherwise, most H-Cl descriptions likely apply to it as well.

Hamster-Ys (H-Ys)

Homepage: http://hamster-fr.sourceforge.net/

Like HFr, Hamster-Ys (H-Ys) is used by french users. It is based on H-Pg, so if not mentioned otherwise, most H-Pg descriptions likely apply to it as well.

Please note:

• If applicable, all descriptions below are based on most current beta version, so some might not apply to current stable release yet.
   
• If you need more details on any topic, please ask in one of the Hamster newsgroups: hamster.en.misc (English), hamster.de.misc (German), hamster.fr.divers (French), hamster.it.misc (Italian), hamster.general (other languages).
   
• Please send any additions, corrections or clarifications to hamster@elbiah.de.

General

Project status

H-Cl: Enduring development by multiple developers.

H-Pg: Enduring development by single developer but limited to bug fixes and minor or "could not resist" enhancements.

Project orientation

H-Cl: Optimized to run as an interactive application, so it has a rich and comfortable GUI.

H-Pg: Optimized to run as an invisible and unattended system service, so the attached GUI is largely limited to do configuration and to start tasks.

Multiple language support

H-Cl: Available in multiple languages out of the box (e. g. English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, ...).

H-Pg: Only available in English.

Mails

IMAP support

H-Cl: IMAP server available.

H-Pg: Not available.

Send mails directly to recipient's MX server

H-Cl: Not integrated, but script based solution available.

H-Pg: Integrated support.

Mail filters

H-Cl: By filter file or by event based scripts/programs.

H-Pg: Similar to H-Cl, additional GUI based, global filters.

Distribute fetched mails

H-Cl: By recipient assignments, script options or filter file.

H-Pg: Like H-Cl, additional automatic distribution and domain based "catch all/rest" accounts.

Mail forwarding

H-Cl: Forward to local account and remote recipient by alias list.

H-Pg: Forward to local account, remote recipient and distribution list by account settings.

Other mentionable features

H-Cl: GUI to review and deal with ignored mail messages.

H-Pg: Fetched mails can also be left on server for a given number of days.
H-Pg: Option to backup info about filtered mail messages in a "junk" account.
H-Pg: Daily summary of filtered mails ("spam report").
H-Pg: Global mail filters can also be activated for SMTP server.

Newsgroups

Support for NNTP feed commands (IHAVE etc.)

H-Cl: Available.

H-Pg: Available (Vr. 1.24 or later)

Subscribe/unsubscribe newsgroups from newsreader

H-Cl: Not supported but comfortable dialog for subscription handling.

H-Pg: Supported (newsreader will get a full list of all groups available on any server; automated subscribe/unsubscribe by observing actual newsgroup access).

Other mentionable features

H-Cl: GUI to review and deal with filtered news messages.

H-Pg: Maximum size of newsgroup files doubled to 4 GB.

Miscellaneous

Remote access by TCP/IP

H-Cl: Limited support, e. g. to start prepared scripts.

H-Pg: Fully supported (server and GUI in separate programs connected by TCP/IP).

Load RSS/ATOM channels into newsgroups

H-Cl: Not available.

H-Pg: Available.

Scheduler to start repetitive tasks

H-Cl: By script commands.

H-Pg: Like H-Cl, additional GUI based scheduler.

Other mentionable features

H-Cl: Widely configurable status line.

H-Pg: Various HTML reports (disk usage, mail filters etc.).

Technical

TLS/SSL protocol for secure connections

H-Cl: Fully supported.

H-Pg: Limited to access remote servers.

Run as system service

H-Cl: No built-in support but can be run as a system service with additional tool.

H-Pg: Can both be run as an application and as a native system service.

OLE interface to use H. by script or programming languages

H-Cl: Available.

H-Pg: Not available.

Other mentionable features

H-Pg: Integrated SOCKS support to establish router connections.
H-Pg: Servers can be bound to mulitple IPs.